1) Still reeling from one of the most breath-taking scholarly articles I've ever read: a meticulous demolition of Anders Ericsson's claims about deliberate practice from @BrookeMacnamara and her colleagues.
2) The authors highlight shifts in definitions: Ericsson has claimed that deliberate practice a) must be designed by a teacher, b) may be designed by a teacher c) need not be designed by a teacher. 
3) Ericsson has described studies as being examples of deliberate practice - then, subsequently, as not being examples of deliberate practice. They pull no punches about this.
4) They show that he has varied his definitions of expertise, from the top few-hundred performers to successful amateurs. They refute 10,000 hours (again!). They note that other forms of learning (not just deliberate practice) help (for example, pure experience, and play).
5) Thus an unavoidable conclusion...
6) Does that mean that we can't shouldn't use deliberate practice in education? No: deliberate practice makes an important difference to individual performance. But it's claims have been wildly overstated.
7) No online version as far as I can tell, it's Chapter 9 in this book. Massive thanks to @LornaShires for recommending it amzn.to/38ZRyJe
8) Context i) I discussed the meta-analysis finding a limited role for deliberate practice here:
9) I've written about the critiques of deliberate practice previously improvingteaching.co.uk/2018/10/28/cri…
10) But I'm still left astonished at the gap between the popular perception of deliberate practice and the underlying evidence...
11) Text online thanks to @francis_miller
